Musings in Search of a Muse

What is "the fish" anyway? It's not only a subtle way of professing my faith through e-mail (it's on my "signature" at work, too), but it's an ancient symbol. Read on!

The fish was perhaps the favorite christian symbol, and we note the richness of its meaning.

The biblical and pagan cultural background was again important in the development of the symbol.

The New Testament abounds with references to fish. We recall Christ telling his disciples he will make them fishers of men. [Gospel of Matthew, Ch.4 ver.19] The fish therefore became the symbol of the Christian. He was saved in the net of the gospel news preached by the fishermen apostles.

The most important point regarding the symbol of the fish is that in Greek the word fish was written as "ICHTHYS". There are many misconceptions that the Christian used the word fish as a secret code or password. This is false and demonstrates a lack of history.

The word fish was not a secret code, but rather formed an acrostic, which was a typical classical style of poetry by which the letters of a word were ordered to form a phrase, or vice versa. In this case we can vertically read the greek word for fish:

Iesus
CHristos
THeou
Yios
Soter

Each letter in the word fish formed a word. The meaning of each greek word formed by the letters ICHTHYS are:

Iesus = Jesus CHristos = Christ THeou = of God Yios = Son Soter = Saviour.

Taken as an acrostic, the greek word for fish acquired a very profound meaning for the christian. The phrase read: Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour. It was the primitive credo, the fundamental article of faith because it synthesized the theological essence the true follower of Christ was called to profess.